Why Vehicle-To-Grid Isn’t Happening
When I became VP Marketing for EVWorld.com in 2008 I was frantically going to conferences on electric transportation all over the country and I noticed one thing that really hasn’t changed more than a hair’s breadth in the intervening decade: we’re still talking about, but making essentially zero progress toward, vehicle-to-grid (V2G).
Here’s GreenTechMedia‘s take on the subject. And here’s mine:
First and foremost, V2G hasn’t taken off for the same reason that pastrami ice cream is still on the drawing board: there is no ROI associated with being in this business now, nor will there be one in the foreseeable future.
To be fair, this is true in large part because energy storage itself is difficult to cost-justify. Never mind the cost of integrating millions of point sources of storage coming onto and off the grid on a real-time basis, and never mind that the consumer will demand a king’s ransom for risking a significantly discharged battery when he returns to his car.
Ironically, storage is too helpful for its own good. All constituencies in the energy supply chain (generation, transmission, distribution and load) benefit from the existence of storage, and thus it’s hard to create a business model that apportions the costs fairly.
Yes, storage does enable the integration of more intermittent sources (solar and wind) onto the grid, and it does reduce the need for expensive peaker plants, but I think we can expect large, utility-scale storage to win the day eventually.
I’m confident that if I’m still around to walk into an EV conference with my cane and hearing aids in 2038, they’ll be a breakout session called: “V2G Soon Ready for Prime Time.”
A pilot project of 1000 vehicle to grid chargers in being developed in the UK right now, and in Japan, many EVs already have the capability of AC output of around 1500 watts. More than enough to be useful for running essential items in the home during an emergency.
Craig and Gary,
I agree with Craig, I’m afraid V2G is another one of those solutions looking for a problem. So few homes are affected by an emergency that would render V2G practical or attractive.
Of the 34 million vehicles in the UK less than 50,000 are Pure EV’s another 80,000 are plug-in hybrids. PIEV’s have far less battery capacity and are not easily adapted to rervese discharge.
For the next few years, pilot projects aside, I would say smart charging will be the preferred option – with chargers set up to defer charging during peak hours unless the need in urgent, and to adjust charging speed to avoid any local grid congestion. This approach could also be used to take excess power off the grid at times of high wind / solar generation without the added complexity of exporting to the grid.
Chargers could perhaps also be configured with one breaker allowing a few hundred watts of “UPS” on an islanded circuit running lights, fridge and a few essentials from the car battery when the grid is down. I could see this feature being attractive in markets like India and Africa where the grid is often unreliable.
I agree. When we get to the point that most cars have 75 KWh under the hood, a great number of possibilities open up.
And, like everything else, it’s not an all or nothing situation. I’m sure lots of applications will open up along the way.
Thanks for keeping us apprised.